Between The Worlds
by Elfreida
Summary: The Doctor is slowly but surely spinning apart as he tries to collect himself following the events of losing Donna and Rose. He finds himself at a loss - so how does he end up in Rose's old apartment two days later hunting down his other sock? A four part short about what would happen if the girl he'd give everything to see again suddenly dropped back into his life.
1. Part One

_**Between the Worlds [part one]**_

Scotland Yard looked almost as it always had done, now he came to think about it.

Oh, it might have been painted, re-painted, stripped down to have wires and internet cables threaded through the walls – at which point, he suspected, it would have been painted again – and now there were computers and phones and machines that made buzzing noises whenever anyone went near them as if they were just patiently _waiting_ to make some poor bugger wish they had something suitable to throw at them.

And yet, that was the point. The _people _were the same: the same curious, impatient, blundering, _brilliant _humans that populated the numerous offices and shining corridors and dusty old supply cupboards. All dashing about their lives in such a whirling hurry to be about…well? Just what they did every day? Eating chips and beans on toast, in front of the telly with the family. Maybe they'd catch a good film – or even a bad film, though for the life of him he'd never quite been able to puzzle that one out. Why would you sit down to your life, a life with those you love, in a place called home, only to endure an hour and a half of something truly terrible?

But then when he thought about it, it was _because_ they were in a place called home with the people they loved. It became then…something else entirely. Something beautiful. Something _incredible_. As if inventing the concept of 'boredom' in a universe full of infinite wonders was not enough. It burned, like everything else in their lives, like the birth of a new star, its light rushing out to meet the rest of the universe in a haze of breath-taking fireworks, each the absolution of colour. And he had seen it time and again, oh so many times, and more since deciding to indulge his obsession with that strange little world.

Someone spoke.

His eyes widened.

"Can I help you, sir?"

He took a long breath through his nose before speaking, letting the rush of cold abrade his lungs as they inflated. The feeling hurt only a little now.

"No, no, I'm fine thanks."

_Fine_. He was always fine. He'd said as much to Donna once, when all the people from the library had been released from the computer. And it was true. He would always go on, even after the worst things happened. Because he was the Doctor, and that was who he was.

He would go on.

Because what else could he do? He could stop – _maybe, possibly_ – but either way he could not go _back_. And if he stopped, then what was there then for him but –

He jerked away from where that ended and shivered. One day he would face that which he had run from all his life, but not now – if he did it now it would just seem _mundane_, and-and…wrong somehow if there was no one there. That moment, standing among the humans, so far from home, simply seemed too…incomplete.

* * *

"I thought you were here to help us, Doctor?"

_Why couldn't he just let it go? Why did he have to have it playing over and over in the back of his head like a broken record?_

"Yes, sorry," he ran a hand through his wilding hair. "Well, think of it as something like this –"

The words tumbled from his tongue in a deluge of noise and confusion, but he felt a dim light of relief as his mind swerved into the vast canyons of his knowledge. As he continued, he felt the pleasure of the solution as it formed – the plan, there was always a plan, always a way out –

"_I could save the world, but lose you."_

For the span of a human heartbeat, it all seized. An ice age in his brain. There were boilers beneath the surface to keep everything running and he felt himself moving, speaking, shouting; the flare of manic energy and even bursts of euphoria in places where the ice had not quite reached. And yet the cold never passed. Never stopped. No more warmth…

Time passed like the blink of an eye.

And then he was stood in the corridor again.

* * *

He gazed listlessly at his shoes as he sat on a crumbling wall, elbows digging into his thighs as he tried to collect whatever sense of self he had left. The question gnawed at his mind's fraying edges; grew sharp and drew itself in a blade to slice into his conscious thoughts.

_I'm always fine_ he thought defiantly.

Then why did he feel so…wrong?

He'd been thinking about it for days now, and it wasn't the dying or even the thought of turning round to face things that felt so fundamentally erroneous. No, no it was something else. It was _him_. He would always have died alone, he knew that.

_I'm fine_.

It was the being alone _now_ that was so utterly, so bitingly unbearable, so reviling. A sandstorm that kicked up and smashed the inner sides of his skull like the shockwave of a supernova.

"_I'm burning up a sun just to say good-bye."_

_No!_ He wasn't second guessing that. _Couldn't_ second guess that. She would be happy; she would have a life and grow old with someone she loved and she'd live it with all the glory that seemed to shine out from her. And _he'd_ given her that – the one thing he'd managed to do. He'd given her that gift.

"_One adventure I can never have."_

He had watched –

_Why couldn't I say it? _

He had walked away –

_That could have been me; could have been _us,_ just three words…_

She'd have never stayed if he'd said it, and _he_ would never have been happy without her. He would have been a danger to himself, as he well remembered, and without her –

_He could have said them. He would have said them; couldn't she see them burning across his hearts, for a split second on his tongue? For a split second, he was going to tell her…_

He lived in that moment. That was one truth of the litany he couldn't run from.

He _lived_ in that moment.

* * *

_What right had he to think about that? _

He was still in London, letting his feet take him where they thought best. He should've learnt never to trust his feet.

_You erased the life of your best friend, and you're thinking about _that?

He felt vile. Disgusting. His body felt…sharper than usual. Around the edges. And his throat had an acrid feel to it. His vision kept slipping into ultra-violet when he forgot to concentrate on colour. It was distracting for a while, to bathe himself in the way some things seemed to shimmer whilst others faded to black. And then he remembered that he could not turn back to see if the effect occurred around her.

Probably not. Unless she'd spontaneously developed fluorescent pigments in her hair and skin.

_They shimmered anyway. How had he managed _not _to tell her?_

_Why was he still thinking about it?_

The subject was CLOSED. Done. She had someone else, and quite rightly.

He felt ill.

* * *

_His hearts were being put through a vice. One at a time. A vice with bladed screwdrivers. It took everything he had simply to stay from collapsing to the floor and rocking himself until the pain eased. His fingers clutched at his hair until the pain from both points blended into one._

_He was never going to sleep again._

* * *

He needed a distraction. Mars perhaps? That was always interesting.

* * *

_A distraction. Not an opportunity to re-write the rules on how to be a Timelord. What had he been thinking?_

* * *

He shook a little when he forgot to keep his muscles in check. And they were starting to protest too. They hurt as if he had been running for hours, when in truth he had only taken a stroll. He felt as if stones hung beneath his eyes. Stubble stung his skin where it spread across his neck and face; the vanguard of some alien scrub swamp.

He didn't even notice where his maverick feet were taking him until he was standing at the alley entrance to the Powell Estate. They always took him there.

_Never trust your feet._

It was just the same as it ever was: the grey-black of the bitumen – its cold, damp smell after rain – the lurid yellow of graffiti on the wall behind the bins…he couldn't quite see it from where he stood, and found himself not wanting to know. It would have been…too much? Hope? An old message? And thinking of that, he selfishly realised he would rather not know for the minute possibility that it was something else.

Breathing hurt again. He was used to walking away –

_Running away._

– but this time the feeling of his chest being compressed refused to shift. It was as if the air had turned to some sort of heavy acid that clawed and dragged at his insides. Donna would have told him he was being daft, that he needed some fresh air on a new planet, that he–that he…

His head bowed as the newest wave of grief hit him. Now the trembling he couldn't stop; a deep shuddering like the writhing of a great snake. It reared up and enveloped him, claimed him, and he had no choice but to let it since every other part of him was concentrating on keeping the raw, burning emotion from spilling over into the world. For terrible things would happen when it did...

He was _the Doctor_.

_He was always _–

"_Never argue with the designated driver."_

He choked. The skin around his eyes was like gravelled sandpaper as he pressed it down; the last attempt to hold it all in…and he smiled at the same time. At the terrible, obscene joke of it all. At the way he truly deserved all the agony he ever suffered. And, last of all, at the memory of _her_ in all her wonder, all her beauty, all her perfection, all her imperfection…

_The three words that he would never say to her playing a broken song…_

Something in the region of his left ear (the right one being more than blinded by the storm he heard in it) told him of the fickle hold gravity was having on him. Pain hit his shoulder as it slammed into the wall, but he barely noticed until his head followed with a crack.

It made his brain feel like an ocean.

Apparently this regeneration had decided to be seasick. That was nice to know.

* * *

He was lurching forward like an old drunk, barely able to ascend the steps to reach the console. What was wrong with him? His shoulder throbbed unbearably and his eyes were full of burning spikes. And he felt even worse for having emptied the contents of his stomach in a back alley – it was so-so…revolting, sickening, repulsive, _unfitting_. _Him_, the last representative of the _Lords of Time_, retching up in the gutter – it was unbearable.

When he reached the console, it buzzed enough to make him wince.

"What's up with you then?"

Even his voice sounded awful. As if he couldn't get it to work properly. He felt the trickling of warm water down his rough cheeks, the emptiness tangible around him. A hand that could have been his gripped the edge as he leaned forward.

He missed. He slid to the floor and leaned hopelessly against the central column, defeated. The humming of the TARDIS came around him, now gentle, now caressing…

* * *

_He huddled beneath the lip of the console, a grin splitting his face as he listened to the sound of laughter in another room – the sitting room perhaps. It sounded like Martha and Mickey had hit it off, and Jack was with them._

_What in the name of the Ood was he hiding from?_

_Footsteps. Close by; above. Clattering on the grating, but still oblivious. He felt his smile widen mischievously, something warm and soft beneath the callouses of his right hand as he risked a glance. He was rewarded with the sight of Donna, her hair like the waves of a solar flare, face contorted with concentration as she searched for something. He turned back, caging a laugh._

_Why was he hiding? What was she doing on board? Why was everything alright all of a sudden…_this is not real! This can't be real!_ Part of his consciousness was screaming urgently, whilst a much larger part was screaming never to leave, never to break from this deep feeling of…rightness. That was the only word for it. This was _right_. This was how things _should_ be. He never wanted to go back, not to that misery, not to that loss and sense of wrongness. As if his whole world had been bent out of shape and someone had righted it again, just here, just for a moment._

_Why was he hiding?_

_And then the something-warm-and-soft beneath his right hand shifted just a little, and he looked down. Had she always been there? Her smile was enough: it was like the face of the dawn on the earth, her eyes like the soft wood of a summer rose –_

"_What?" She whispered, a slight crease forming in her brow as she gazed back. He took an intake of breath, letting his eyes fall across her open shirt and further to where his hand splayed across her bare thigh. She was so warm, so magnificent, beyond anything he had ever let himself imagine –_

No!_ This is _not real_, not real, could never _be _real, you selfish, pathetic, primitive –_

_And all at once everything rushed back, and he was naked before the surge of grief and longing and guilt, endless guilt._

"_I…"_

_She moved to face him._

"_I was…I was trying to…I couldn't…"_

_Her eyes reflected all the pain, all the anguish, all the longing; he was helpless to the look that liquefied him, caused him to reach for her, though he knew how bitterly futile it was…_

_A sabre twisted through his hearts. He had had enough._

* * *

**_A.N: My second (or is it the third?) edit of this chapter, and I'm pretty certain I've got everything now. Probably won't stop me mucking about with it, though. I realise I never did acknowledge where I got some of the stuff from, though so here it is:_**

**_Inventing 'boredom' is what Death wonders about humans in Terry Pratchett's Discworld (the original quote from Hogfather). I got 'never trust your feet' from Miss Tick (Pratchett again) talking about 'trusting one's elbows' - where I got the idea from, anyway. Same with his ears. The smell of bitumen after rain ISN'T from 'the smell of dust after rain' - it's from personal experience of smelling wet tar and meant to add a dull, damp, depressing and generally nauseous quality to underlie the scene. 'All her perfection, all her imperfection' is from Inception. 'Seasick', I'm proud to say, was all my own! Describing sleep deprivation was, again, from personal experience. The original 'something-(insert)' description I can't for the life of me remember..._**

**_Oh - and I've directly referenced Doomsday, The End of the World, Forest of the Dead, Journey's End, The Waters of Mars and World War Three._**

**_I love people reviewing, honestly, it makes my day!_**


	2. Part Two

_**Between the Worlds [part two]**_

His body felt better. He had to begrudgingly admit that much.

Yes, for the wicked crick in his neck from where his head had rested against the central column of the TARDIS, he felt less like he were about to throw up. Or break down. Or faint.

_Can a few hours of sleep really do that?_

He had hauled himself to his feet and stumbled across the control room to look for a bathroom and a change of suit, feeling for the first time in days that his limbs were stringently obeying orders. He winced though. For his chest.

For the deep knife-wound that lay open and weeping.

_How could she have gone and ripped them open like that? How could she? _For it had been his faithful ship that had manipulated the dream, he was sure of it. It could only have been – the details had felt so intense, so vivid, so –

_It could have been real. A glimpse. You've had them before._

His hand slipped on the razor, and he swore in a multitude of languages as blood poured from his left index finger – he hadn't even managed to get it to his face. He slammed it down and bound the cut, slapping his palms to his cheeks.

_He was okay. He was _always_ okay._

It only took a glance in the mirror to catch the bare-faced lie. He looked truly terrible. He didn't think his reflection could have been worse than with the suit on – it was crinkled and stained and so ill looked after following so long without taking it off it was almost as if it had begun to absorb his state of mind.

_Shredded._

But when he'd taken it off and come back to the mirror to try and do something to counteract the sheer _gauntness_ in his face – hence, the razor – he'd been forced to take stock of the sallowness his skin had been reduced to, the way his ribs poked through it closer to his abdomen. He looked _withered._

_He was okay._

His cheeks stung where he'd hit them.

Then he dressed, for there was no way he was going to get through shaving. Defeated by a razor…the suit buttons were bad enough, never mind the laces of his shoes. Even he had conceded by that point that he was a hairsbreadth away from coming apart at the seams.

_I am okay._

_She is with _him_, and _I_ am okay._

The burning behind his eyes started again.

* * *

He should really go and see the Ood. They might even give him some sort of closure – some end to wallowing in the blood of everything he had managed to destroy – but he didn't want to risk more lives on the sake of a whim.

He smelt snow on the air as he sat on a bench, on a hill, the silver-white skeleton of a tree overhead, trying to will away the crushing sensation of being alone once again.

_I shall become like the stone._

He stared at a particular spot on the frozen mud for so long, he was certain it _ought _to have burst into flames by the time a shadow fell across it. He shut his eyes and let his thoughts tangle behind the iris, wishing they would come to a stop.

_He didn't want to die._

His brow knotted with the beginning of a headache.

_I don't want to go. Not just yet._

There were still things he could do, places he could go to make up for the fundamentally horrific things he'd managed to pull off already. It was a childish sentiment, but one some part of him clung to nonetheless. It was better than having no hope at all, anyway.

_What good's hope if you've already lost her?_

He felt as though if he opened his thorax there would be nothing inside but a bloodied mess of ragged tissue in the pathetic motions of beating.

_What good are my hearts if I couldn't even succeed_ _in giving them to her?_

_I'm still okay. Because she _will_ be. I'll still be alright._

The tears piled up behind his lids as he heard and felt someone moving beyond them. He didn't let them spill – he _was _stronger than that. He was the Oncoming Storm, and he would weather this.

Something banged onto the bench.

"Oh, sorry!"

He wasn't paying attention.

"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to get a signal."

_I'll be fine._

"Ah – the origin point's not triangulating, like something's blocking the return feedback," she was muttering to herself, voice slightly strained as if she held something over her head. "Come on, no wait – yes! Yes! Gotcha!"

Her feet thudded as they hit the ground. And he felt as if his hearts really had stopped beating.

With aching slowness, he opened his watery eyes to behold the creature with her voice, blinking in the light. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He had fallen asleep again, he must have done. That or he had just died and this was the last ditch attempt of his brain to conjure up a parting moment of peace. Either way, his eyes lied.

She wasn't there. She simply _wasn't. _Wasn't staring at him from two feet away with twigs threaded through her silken blond hair as if she'd been in the tree…?

"What…" he sounded like he'd recently drowned.

"Oh don't worry about me, I'll only be here a couple of minutes. Stepped out to get milk, think I might have gone a _bit _far," Guilt crossed her pale features as she scrunched them in response to the sticks in her hair. "Fancy you being on _this _hill, oh he is gonna _kill _me…"

"Who is?"

"Oh," she paused in the act of dragging detritus away from her scalp with an exasperated frown. "Who do you think? Well, I suppose it won't come as a surprise at least. I mean he's gonna go off at me anyway for wondering off –"

She paused again, her eyes narrowing as if seeing him properly for the first time.

"Hey, you okay?"

"You're here." He croaked. It was a matter of fact. Even his head could not have built her image to be so much like her. Maybe the TARDIS could have – she had seen into her very heart after all, just as Rose had seen into the TARDIS – but she was so…so…

"Yeah," she nodded hesitantly as if wondering how much to say. "Yeah, kind of."

Her eyes flicked to something at her wrist as she hastily adjusted it. It went 'bleep'.

"_Kind of?_" He whispered hoarsely, suddenly finding his legs and jumping to his feet. "You shouldn't be here! You _can't _be here!"

"Are you here on your own?"

"Rose –"

_Just saying her name made his insides seize, though with what it was hard to tell. Was he angry?_

"Look, just listen, 'cos if you're on your own, I can hang around for a bit. I mean, I know what you're like when you are."

"_Rose_ – "

_How could I be angry? How could I be anything other than the blubbering mess I was fifty seconds ago?_

"And I know I shouldn't, but you never did say anything, and I don't…" her breath came as a long sigh as she drew close. His own hitched. "Jesus…" she breathed softly.

"Wha…what did you mean 'I never said anything'?" The words tumbled out in a mess as he cut them to draw his next breath. Oh, how it hurt…

"Oh god, I'm not leaving you here on your own."

Thinly gloved fingers fiddled distractedly with the device that resembled a shining metal bracelet, scrabbling at a streak of brilliant red laid elegantly over the surface.

"But –"

"I'm not gonna argue! There's another cycle happening the day after tomorrow and I can just catch it then."

"What about –"

"He can wait! Anyway, it won't matter if I let you kill yourself now."

"_What?_ Rose you're not –"

"I'm making perfect sense, thank you very much, now just hang about a minute…"

"You can't!"

"Why not?"

"You just…you just…"

"Doctor, I told you, I'm not ever gonna leave you, not then and not now."

There was a click from the bracelet.

"Rose..."

"There."

"What?"

"Done." She raised her eyebrows and gave him a stony look. "Now it can't be put back in until I re-set it and it receives the change in radiation. Unless you want I should loop the whole thing back in a forced fusion implosion."

He looked back with the raw expression of being utterly lost.

"So," her voice softened as she leant in to reach her arms around his waist. "A day and two nights with me, or blow up the earth?"

"Well," he said eventually, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face. Rose giggled and hugged him tighter, causing something of a minor explosion somewhere in his midriff. It was an eruption of how impossible everything was, how irrational, and the despair of it all threatening to break him apart. He shivered in her arms, his own rushing around her shoulders in a desperate, frantic embrace that crushed her to his broken chest.

_She can't be here. She really can't be…even…even if I have a future with her in it – that's what she meant, wasn't it? That's what she was implying? That she was, she could, she-she…_

"Doctor." She murmured into his chest. He exhaled roughly, forcing the air in with a grim determination that made her giggle again. He eased his arms to look down, meeting her glittering eyes. There was so much he wanted to say, to do – not least of which was to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away to the TARDIS, never to be separate again. All he could manage was a croak that wavered into agony with the words.

"You shouldn't be here."

"Why not?" She repeated gently. He cracked, just a little. His breath came in a strangled sob that hurt his neck to force it past the lump.

"Because, even if you are here, even if you're home." He stopped as his tongue refused to work. "Even if," he continued, regaining some control. "Crossing back to my time risks more than just the earth. Why would you do that?"

"Well, like I said, I just popped out to get milk…"

"That's not what I meant."

'_What the _HELL _are you doing?_'and'_Have you gone _INSANE?'were the only thoughts that circulated as he forced himself to let go, to step away, and flop back down on the bench, defeated in every sense of the word. _If only, if only – if only I wasn't so much of a coward…_

"She brought me here."

"Who?"

"The TARDIS. She wouldn't let me be dragged back to something potentially disastrous on my own."

"How –" but then he stopped himself as his thinking kicked in. Of course his TARDIS would connect to such a device, and with her being so close to Rose…

"Actually,"

Rose started toward the bench so that their knees just touched.

"I get the feeling she actively takes me wherever I need to go." She said quietly. His hand seemed as if it acted on its own as it reached for hers. _How could I ever tell her that every touch is like fireworks to me?_

"And you're stuck with me anyway, so you might as well get used to it."

"That's a good point."

She pulled him firmly to his feet and pushed herself into the crook of his arm – a nook seemingly shaped just for her – and steered them into a pace of sorts down the hill. He tried his best not to stumble, but it was as if the shock of the past few weeks had suddenly decided to hit him with everything it had. It was all he could do to just to stay on his feet. Rose gave him a swift look of concern as he tried – pathetically, it has to be said – to conceal having gone over on his ankle. It didn't hurt that much: the structure of his ligaments and tendons were resistant to such petty injury, but still the pain seemed unnecessarily insistent.

"You alright?"

"Me? Yeah," he said quickly. "Where are we going exactly?"

"Back to my flat."

"Really."

She shifted slightly.

"I've been keeping it. S'pose it's part of a sort of earth-independence-thing now mum's not back here."

"Oh, right." He felt himself nodding automatically. Then he fought a wince for the headache. _Am I…jealous? Of her keeping a home away from me – and this isn't even my time with her! What am I doing?_

He was suddenly rigidly still, afraid, so _very_ afraid that he'd been wrong. Or, worse, that she would suddenly realise and leave…quite _how_, he had yet to imagine with the transmat out of commission, but still. He was shaking again, his breath breaking in painful waves.

"Hey," she wrapped her arms around him, and he her, and there they stayed until the tremors subsided. He rested his chin on the top of her head and closed his eyes, focusing only on the warmth that seeped through her touch and the breaths she took against his hearts. She was all that was in the world whilst she kept hold of him. _All that keeps me from falling apart – and the reason for it if I did. Why couldn't I have just told her? It burns within my every moment with her, can she not see? Can she not feel it?_

After a long while, they started off again.

* * *

"Doctor, have you had _anything_ to eat _at all_ since you've been…you know?"

"On my own?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's been a bit hectic really. I mean saving the world from Cyberkings and preventing an incursion from the ancient water race of Mars takes up a lot of the time."

"That's a 'no' then?"

"Not…definitively," he looked innocently into her glare.

"Right, well," she said determinably. "We're getting some food in you then. Timeline isn't going to collapse if I get some chips to cook for you."

_Rose Tyler, into action._

"Think I've still got mayonnaise in the fridge…"

"You're going to cook for me?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're not in any state to go out, you," She poked him in his all-too-prominent ribs. "You look as if a light breeze would tip you over – probably would if I wasn't holding you up."

He laughed, the sensation rippling his throat.

* * *

_The flat was just how he remembered it. The only detail missing was Jackie rushing up to give him a ridiculous kiss before fussing over Rose. The walls were thin and pale, letting the drafts through in such odd, distinctive ways. There were the pictures on the wall and on the phone table was one of them together. He was smiling in the photo in a way he barely recognised, even though it was the same face he studied. And though he hated to admit it, even Rose looked changed from that frozen moment: older, more mature, more self-assured._

_More arrestingly, wondrously brilliant. Fantastic, in ways he was almost certain she never realised about herself._

_Unable to stay standing, he sank back into the sofa and raked his free hand through his hair. Darkness swallowed his vision and he tried to cling on to the fantastical dream – clutch at her hand one last time. For one last, true moment before he left her. _

_Again. _

I'm to leave her again.

Oh my love, let me feel something other than the pain of this parting. Did I just think that? Was that the word I didn't say? I could say it now…

_But there was nothing but obliterating loss as consciousness ripped away from him._

* * *

**_A.N: 'I shall become like the stone' came from Enemy at the Gates, oddly enough. 'If only, if only, the woodpecker sings'...that's from Louis Sachar's Holes. Stuck with me 'If only, if only.' Smelling snow I originally heard in Pratchett's The Wee Free Men. 'Frozen like a photograph' was an inspiration for the whole paragraph and it's from Being Human (the BBC series)._**

**_I've tried here to capture all the pain and insecurities. The whole point of this is to juxtapose his love with the grittyness of his character and bring it down to earth, so to speak._**

**_Reviews, my precious, reviews!_**


	3. Part Three

_**Between the Worlds [part three]**_

_I didn't want to wake up. _

_I didn't want to return to an empty TARDIS with nothing but my grief and a stolen memory of something that could never be. But, reality was always crueller than that. Eventually I would have to open my eyes to the world, for as much as it hurt, I still didn't want to die._

_Though that moment, cusped between the two worlds, was the closest I've ever been to wishing it._

_Someone moved, sending a warmth through my side to ease the freeze-shattered remnants of my innards. And I really should have been concerned about that, given that it was all a fabrication. But there was something in that warmth that would somehow always comfort me, even if it wasn't real. Even if the fingers that ran across my skin were a figment of my own, personal tragedy._

_It's mine. I could drown in it if I wanted._

"Doctor?"

_Her voice still? How could I have never told her the way it seems to vibrate with the earliest stirrings of the solar plane as the planet slides from their winter into spring? _

_A man who was supposed to have all of time, and there was suddenly now time to say it. I would have said it, too. I would have said a great many things to her. Things that burned in the constellations of my mind until I couldn't bear them anymore. Things that made my hearts feel as if they would beat out of my chest, though I'm sure that's a cliché from _somewhere._ Or tear themselves anew as I carved the words into the stars with my tongue._

_All moments lost, gone – GONE – lost forever to me…_

_Because I couldn't say those words to her…_

"Doctor!"

_I groaned. I didn't want to lose that last moment, because then even her voice would be gone and I would be alone…_

"Oi! Wake up!"

"Why?"

_And there it was: my voice. My true voice. Broken into the pieces of my hearts and scattered to the ten winds. I knew tears streamed from my eyes as I tilted my head back, determination and rebellion sneaking into my absurd attempts to hold onto the dream. The warmth suddenly engulfed me and I couldn't resist the sob that pushed through my lips._

_I would have all the world know my sorrows._

"Doctor, I'm here, I haven't –"

"I left you."

"No, you didn't –"

"I never told you, never said, never dared, and _oh Rose_, I thought I could give you something better…"

_I felt it then; the distraught breathing of someone above me as they lay against my skin. Was that what the warmth was? But it was _her _warmth, only ever _her_ warmth. The warmth I wanted to feel for the rest of time, because how could the universe ever be warm without it? How could _I _ever be_ _without it? She holds my hearts, and I've tried, I've tried so hard to be the whole of myself without her, but I can't. Either I must make myself again, or crumble here and now, for I cannot be '_Her Doctor'_ – the man who was _better_, the man who was _good_ – I can't be him anymore because he doesn't _exist_ without her._

"He doesn't exist anymore, because he was a coward and he _lost you_."

_The other was silent now, but had not moved. Fingers that were _achingly _like hers trembled as they traced across my jaw, slipping like rose petals into my hair. In them was unspoken intimacy, such that I could think only of her. I leaned into that touch, as if it was the last thing of any meaning in the universe, and it didn't matter anymore that it was only inside my head. I just wanted to die like that, cradled in her warm hands._

"Because…because I love you."

_I gasped a bit as I let go of the words that had burned in my mind for the eternity since the beach. They were…liberating. I murmured them again, and let the ocean drown me._

_Yes. This is how I want to die._

* * *

I felt, as if from very far away, something brush ever so softly against my lips. As deep in the darkness as I had allowed myself to fall, I yet felt that tentative, _tantalising_ touch of her mouth to mine.

The shiver that went through my broken hearts at this _faintest_ contact was akin to an earthquake underneath a volcano. It ripped me upward and toward the sounds and smells of consciousness; toward the crash of reality, and there was nothing I could do to keep my eyes closed. Nothing I could do to cling on, and was hopeless now.

I met eyes that were like the wood of a summer rose.

"Oh my Doctor..."

They were full of a gleaming river, so close the water spilled over my skin and mingled with my own tears. They were so, _so _beautiful –"

"You still with us?"

I was shaking. No breath I could take was enough, and they piled up in my throat as I pulled them in wildly, desperately, _frantically _to try and regain some semblance of reality. But there was never a shadow, never _anything _else but the woman before me: here, _now_, with me. With me in her arms as we shared the weight of the world – as it should be. As it always _would_ be. The completion of me; the completion of her.

She smiled a watery smile that held the light of the sun and the moon and all the stars as I stared with raw, unchecked wonder. My hand rose, trembling, to her alabaster face, closing the distance with a moment when time itself seemed to still.

My breath caressed her lips.

And all else evaporated as I touched her mouth to mine, pouring everything into that kiss. My longing, my love, my _need_ burned and froze as I stroked my lips over hers, lost in the moment that lasted epochs of the world. And when her lips moved against mine, they left trails of fire. They moved slowly, patiently; never pressing, never leaving as I explored their folds. They met mine with a sincerity like an electric current running through her skin; thrumming and constant as my fingertips alighted on her ear and on her neck…

In reality, it was a kiss of barely more than half a minute, but for me it was closer to half a millennia. She lit the stars of my life in ways I had almost forgotten existed, and when I felt the parting it was as if part of my own body had detached, though her mouth still hovered close.

"I love you."

The corners of her mouth twitched. The last tear dripped from her chin as she leant her forehead to mine.

"I know."

But with that she seemed to collect herself, shifting away from my chest and withdrawing her hands to mine, now at my sides. Then it hit me what I'd just done, how many walls I'd just shattered.

I'd just kissed her.

I struggled to sit up, relieved all the same that she'd not let go.

_Kissed her_.

While in her arms it had been so simple, _so obvious_ – as if, for one moment in the universe, it was all the future could ever be _because I loved her_.

_Oh gods…_

The words had tumbled out at long last, and now all I wanted to do was scream them to the skies. I love Rose Tyler. _I LOVE ROSE TYLER!_ And while we moved together, there was no room for a silly thing like doubt. As if I could _doubt_ something as _true _as that.

Now though, it was as if I'd just exceeded all the worst acts of my regeneration – it was all in a tangle. The universe had come back into focus and for the first time in my life, I didn't know what to think. I was at the mercy of what she would say next, athough how I was going to survive her rejection I really didn't know.

Actually, no, I did. I _wouldn't._

"Doctor…"

"Look, Rose –"

_What was I going to do? Apologise? Beg?_

"Doctor,"

_She had kissed _him _on the beach, but what did that mean for _us?_ Had it changed, the way she felt? Or had things simply gone to being as they always had been, her feelings tempered by my wretched, _invalidic_ inability to –_

"Doctor, I love you."

"Really?"

'_Really'? _THAT_ is what you say when the woman _you love _tells _YOU_ she loves you?_

My mouth dropped open as if it would encourage more air inside. I looked up into her shining eyes, red rimmed, cheeks stained, and I saw what I had felt as we drew our mouths together. The electricity that bolted through her and which hummed to life as she held my eyes. That look…stilled my hearts. And all at once caused them to clench; palpitate, turn summersaults, because it was the promise of futures beneath the dawn at the ends of creation. Of planets where the rock grew like flowers; where mountains swayed in the breeze – and all, all of them with her.

"Really!" Her face split in a breathless laugh.

_She's here. My saviour. My Rose. _

_She's come back to me._

My face hurt with the grin that pulled it apart as I leapt to my feet, the laughter jumping onto my tongue. I crushing her to me as we spun in a dance all of our own.

_My Rose._

I stopped to gaze down, taking in the sight of her grinning back, cheeks flushed, tongue poking out –

"Did I mention I love you?"

She pitched into me as the laughter burst in her stomach.

"Yeah," she managed finally, reaching up to swipe a brief kiss that made my hearts flutter. "Yeah, you did."

"So…what did you want to wake me up for?"

"Oh yeah, the chips are done!"

* * *

They were delicious. Truly.

It might have had _something_ to do with my lack food or the fact I was sat on the settee with Rose – my _Rose –_ but they turned out to be the best chips I'd ever tasted. I still couldn't bring myself to let go of her hand once she'd taken mine. It was the heart of a warm fire, an impossible fire, and if I let go then it would fall into the void again. She seemed to understand, for her hand was as tightly gripped on mine as mine was on hers. I looked over to her.

And then I remembered.

"You can't stay with me, can you? I mean, not _here_ with me."

She met my eyes with a soft pity.

"You know I can't. I mean, that'd hardly be fair for you – the _other _you, you know, the _you_ in my time. I said I'd be going back the day after tomorrow, and, well…"

"Yeah," I felt as if the floor had just spiralled away again. "Yeah, yeah, I understand."

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

_We'll have to say good-bye again. _I'll_ have to say good-bye._

"Doctor –"

"When would…when…" my voice wobbled. She sighed, setting the chips down so she could turn into me. My arms automatically circled around her and pulled her closer, sliding us back into the cushions. She laid her head over my hearts, and shook it slowly.

"Spoilers."

_Curious._ I had a brief flash of someone else using that turn of phrase, but the memory was drowned by the sensation of Rose's weight falling on my ribs. And my hips. And just generally, considering the position we were in…

_Oh god._

"Doctor, are you alright?"

"Fine, yeah,"

"You've tensed up."

I opened my mouth and stuttered various vowel sounds before surrendering to the reality that stringing words together had momentarily failed me. I shut it again as she raised herself off me, clamping back the moan of protest that originated somewhere near my pelvis.

_I mean really, of all the times we were close before, all the times I had those niggling little fantasies crowding round the corners of my mind, you're choosing _NOW _to make yourself apparent?_

I was perilously close to blushing. Control over my own body and its dignities was something that I always prided myself on – relied on. But for once that particular appendage wasn't taking any orders whatsoever, diverting the blood flow with, I thought ironically, an almost manic glee.

"Doctor?"

_She'll notice soon enough – oh, for heaven's sake!_

I was paralysed by the humiliation of it all – not to mention the tightening in my trousers – _mortified_ that she would see me like this so soon. I mean, wasn't there supposed to be flowers and weird chocolate flavours and dinner first? And, alright, we'd sort of taken care of that last one, but still…I shouldn't be like _this_. I'm a _Timelord!_ Not a rabbiting ape who can't control the urge to do…that…every time! And she deserved me being the gentleman, didn't she? Especially since she came back with me to comfort me, to keep me from falling into the dark, and she probably didn't expect, didn't want –

"Hey! Talk to me!"

I stared back with open shame colouring my cheeks. I couldn't hold her gaze, not with the traitorous bastard inflating between my legs, throbbing to the tight fit of the pinstripes. I tried to shift over so she wouldn't see, but the movement sent a sparking jolt through my nethers that forced me to clamp my teeth shut to contain the hiss that escaped anyway. I clutched the back of the sofa, feeling my knuckles drain of blood as I fought the wave of wanton need that swept through me.

_Wonderful, _more_ to go down there._

Rose's eyes widened in alarm as she darted forward to grab my shoulders.

"Doctor, just…oh!" Now she was away from my lap, her eyes slid down – and hit the bulge. I met her returning glance with absolute horror, certain the blood vessels in my face had opened to the air. I couldn't breathe. My bypass shunted into action and I shut my eyes, trying to will everything down.

Not the easiest thing when the cause of distress was a hands-span away from me. Or that as soon as I closed my eyes I realised she was holding back a fit of giggles.

"Rose, this is no laughing matter!"

My eye snapped open to see the hand pressed to her mouth.

"I mean it! Really, I mean I –"

"Nice to see I can get you going!"

"Well," I glanced down. I had to admit it wasn't unimpressive.

"Got a bit of a balance problem there?"

"_Balance problem? _Rose, I…" I trailed off, trying to collect what to say. Suddenly the concern flashed back into her eyes and she reached for my face, closing the gap with a kiss that was softer than milk; warm and gentle and reassuring as she leant her head against mine.

"It's okay. It's okay, my sweet Doctor." She shivered slightly. I brushed her hair back from her face, noting how her skin was suddenly colder. A _lot_ colder. I began to tremble just a little, every sensation a tiny bolt of white lightening as she pushed me down onto the sofa. Her eyes pinned me there as her hands trailed down, fingertips slipping slowly over my chest and further, though her gaze never left mine. I could see her breaths shallow, her lips drying as she gazed into me, parting just a fraction before she looked down.

Her hands stilled, flush against my navel.

It was as if my hearts had stopped. I swallowed, freezing anticipation coating my throat, and followed her gaze. There was nothing that could have prepared me for that moment. Times before? None existed. None compared to this. They were all gone, leaving me like leaves in the breeze. My chest shuddered with the breaths I tried to take, the rest of me still as the air before a storm.

She flicked her burning eyes back to me in a smile, and there we stayed. Just for a moment.

Then she moved her hands, and my back arched into the couch.

* * *

_**A.N: Okay, stripped this all down and it's LOADS more readable. Much more elegant too, and less bloody bulky. God, I ramble a lot! Anyway:**_

_**'Gone, gone' was actually inspired by Gollum. 'He lost you' was inspired by Mitchel's line 'we lost her' (Being Human). There are a dozen other lines that I'll always picture coming from a particular person or place - Tony Robinson reading Pratchett and Steven Moffat's Coupling can account for a lot of it (including 'balance problem').**_

_**I should also explain the transition from third to first person: it's meant to represent the Doctor's self-possession and mirror the concept that he's not truly himself without her. Just an artsy thing that I think kinda works. **_

_**When I originally did the very last bit, it was to slow violin music...gave me goosebumps at the time...**_

_**Oh, my darlings, reviews, beautiful reviews?**_


	4. Part Four

_**Between the Worlds [part four]**_

I thought the earth would drop out of orbit.

It couldn't have been steering so erratically, not if every law of physics still held. But those insignificant details – like the fundamental mechanics of the universe – had ceased to exist moments ago.

_Who'd have thought the intimate touch of a human would have that effect?_

I tried to force myself to breathe in and out and look back up, but after the feeblest of motions I fell back with the knowledge that both were obsolete. A moan undulated through my body; unfamiliar, guttural, rendering all other thoughts and words wholly discarded as her hands moved over my swollen need. Stars burst around my pelvis; a symphony of lightening sparks erupting over and over, leaving me quivering with desperate, selfish desire. I felt my skin; her feathered fingertips as they traced me, _stroked me, _moved me–

She giggled, but it was breathy; uneven, and there were low gasps that were the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. Had I heard other sounds? My mouth hung wide, my sight rolling. She leaned down to me, the sun in her hair, and plucked a kiss from my dry, dry mouth.

And then another. And then another.

Our lips touched; her fingers moved.

I moaned into her mouth, and then howled, heaving back, unable to stop. Pressure built around my hips: I _had _to move and I bucked into her. My hips lifted an agonising gap from the sofa, only to sink back and try again. I reached for her wrist, grabbing blindly as she continued to send my mind closer and closer to a tumbling, _boiling_ edge. I felt harder with each passing second, and yet with what she was doing to me –

_If it gets any more blood, either I'll pass out or it'll explode._

My hips rippled, rolling beneath her. Between them was the only part of my body I could still feel as she kneaded inward. I pressed my eyes shut, whimpering mumbled gibberish amid shuddering waves of noises I never knew I could make. Her wrist must have hurt by now, but I couldn't ease my grip, as if it was all that held me back as I writhed helplessly between bottomless gulfs. The only certainty was that I never wanted this to end. Ne…never…_oh Rose…_

"_Rose…_" My voice was so hoarse it was barely a whisper. "_Ro…oh…_"

She pressed and stroked and pulled…

"Doctor?"

"_Rose…" _

My grip tightened desperately. My back shuddered, arching my hips into hers. I felt frozen and afire; every movement agony, every breath stolen and lost. My body was spinning away, coming apart. I wanted to say her name again, but it stuck on my tongue, no breath to say it with, so I groaned like a wolf. I was so close –

And then her hand was gone.

I let go of her wrist as she drew it away. I couldn't see anything as I lay back, shivering, gasping. I looked blearily up at her as my hearts slowed to a pace that allowed me to see.

"What you stop for?"

She laughed as I pouted, helpless to move. I suddenly realised she'd settled to kneeling with one leg either side of me, hovering on her hands as she leant forward. Our lips met in a move so natural I could scarcely believe we had only kissed properly less than an hour ago. It was so soft; so gentle. But even without the temperature difference, I could feel how _particularly_ warm she was getting. Her mouth traced mine, and then trailed across my jaw, going up to my ear. She brushed it with velvet lips, and whispered with a voice like the summer breeze.

"Well, there are…other things we can do."

"Other things?"

My brain ground to a halt. Rose laughed, dropping onto me so that the vibrations passed through both of us. I grinned, my arms around her waist. The feeling of her body against mine was beyond anything, but to my relief, it wasn't as overwhelming as before. I shifted just slightly under her and she smiled coyly, sliding into position and sending sparks back through my legs.

"I think you get the idea."

"You've done this before?"

Rose looked taken aback as I cursed my big mouth in every language I knew.

"Well…"

"I mean," I started quickly, and then promptly stopped as I realised how it would sound.

"…with me?" I ended quietly. Rose paused.

"Yeah."

It shouldn't have been so surprising, really, considering what I'd just confessed.

"Right."

My lips were dry as a desert.

"Well, I mean, in the future we're…"

"Yes, yes," I nodded emphatically. "I mean that would definitely make sense, assuming you –"

She cut me off as she crushed her mouth to mine.

"Hey!"

We both grinned into the kiss. My hand slid up her back to pull her closer and her hands tangled in my hair. Our grins slowly faded as we continued, deepening the act for the first time. Little by little, I let my tongue slip into her mouth, moaning a little as hers rushed past mine. It was cooler than I thought it'd be, and _soft_. Only Rose Tyler could be so insistent whilst being so gentle, exploring my mouth with a curiosity that would have made me laugh if it had been in any other situation.

I felt a burning that had nothing to do with her heat all around me. It made me bolder as I pressed her to me, my tongue racing down hers. My hand found the back of her head, holding her to me with passion sparking my throat, choking me. My respiratory bypass had taken over long ago and I shivered with need, desperate to have her closer. It only ended when she began rocking against me, stoking the coals back into a full blown inferno.

"_Rose_…" I tried to concentrate through the feeling of her knees gripping my hips, though in truth I had no idea what I was going to say in that moment. Words – even words in my own tongue – were inadequate; _clumsy_. All my desire and fear and longing would be lost to sounds that didn't matter, and it hurt. I wanted her to hear _me_, to know –

Without a word of her own she leant back until she was sitting upright. I watched, unable to move as her fingers graced over the buttons of her shirt, pulling them apart one by one. She paused for a second before letting it fall from her shoulders.

She was perfect, in every way. The curve of her hip met the sinewy parabola of her stomach up to her breast in an unbroken sweep of smooth, pale skin. She was thinner than I remembered her, though I had never seen her like this. I couldn't bear to form thoughts for fear I would be unable to absorb it all. I drank in the image of her – the gentle dip of her belly-button, the shine of her skin – growing more intoxicated by the second. I couldn't but linger on the twin peaks that swayed a little as she gave a breathless laugh, still wrapped in the lacy material that, frankly, revealed more than it hid.

I managed to tear away to her face, knowing I must look a right berk with my eyes wide and my mouth hanging. But when I looked into those eyes like summer, I saw something there that made my hearts race. My eyes were still locked on hers when she reached behind her back and loosed the clasp, pulling away the irrelevant garment.

Until there was just skin.

I felt raised by an invisible cord. My hands travelled her back so that I could sit up with her, pressing my lips to her neck. She gasped and I made my way lower, sighing in wonderment, dragging my lip over the jut of her collar bone. Lower and lower, until I came to the speckling of dark tinges that ringed her breast, stopping just short of the pebbled peak. She was trembling now, though she did her best to remain still. My breath was cool against her burning blood vessels, and I would have been content to look all day.

Just to look.

She gasped, drawing a shuddering breath. Her chest heaved only faintly, but it was enough to move the beautiful breasts to bounce. Just lightly, grazing my nose as they did.

My mind blanked. I rushed to take the nipple in my mouth, my right hand splayed on her her back. She whimpered as I wrapped my lips around the hardened tip, flicking my tongue over the rough skin and sucking with complete abandon. I registered little gasps as I moved my left hand to cradle the other, but my attention was on the right. I nipped the sensitive flesh and she cried out. Suddenly I was grasping her shoulders, crushing her mouth to mine and plunging my tongue to meet hers. We moved together, my hands all over the place; her back, her bosoms, in her hair –

Her hands pushed desperately at my suit jacket, all but ripping it off when I finally realised and threw back my arms. My tie was gone with a hiss, and my shirt buttons were next. All the while I was completely engrossed with her soft mouth, blind to everything else as my tongue raced against hers.

My shirt was on the floor and her hands were at my belt before I slowed down to notice. I groaned, half in pain, as she pushed me back and pulled my trousers from my hips, leaving me in my blue boxers. The point of these I couldn't quite decide as her hands brushed me through the thin silk. I shuddered involuntarily. Her touch was like fire and ice. She threw the trousers aside and stood by the settee, fumbling the button of her jeans.

The last of her clothing disappeared.

Before that moment, etched into my mind forever, I hadn't thought it possible to feel so aroused and so terrified at the same time. Her eyes were dark with desire and her skin was alight, but she was nervous too. She smiled breathlessly, pushing me gently into the cushions as she clambered back over me.

"Rose –" I said suddenly, swallowing hard as her heat fell on my skin.

"Yes, doctor?"

She leaned forward and kissed my chest, her hands at the elastic of my boxers.

"I need…I need to tell you…"

She was slowly dragging them away, planting kisses on my abdomen.

"Don't worry," she said, tongue poking out as she grinned. With a flick, the boxers were completely gone.

"I know about the thing with the pulsing. And where your temperature goes like ice…" she slid back up so that her bottom curled upward and her chest settled on mine.

"Actually," she kissed my pulse point _very _slowly. "I think that's my favourite bit."

"I love you."

The words scorched. They flared across the skies of earth and through the time vortex as she came down onto me. Our joint cries echoed in the flat and I was reminded fleetingly of regeneration as we burned together. Her silken walls clenched around me and my hips thrust up to meet her so that I was suddenly all the way inside. Rose let loose a high-pitched moan and threw her head back. Her hair caught in the light and I equalled that moan as her thighs tightened.

Her heat enclosed me and I whimpered desperately, shutting my eyes as my hips jerked again. There were many hallucinogens and euphorants I'd come across over the years, but how could they have been so popular against this? In all the universe, after a search of innumerable galaxies for adventures and wonders, how could I have been so stupid to look _anywhere_ else?

_Of course it would take sex with Rose Tyler to blow my mind wide open._

I suddenly realised that she was keeping her hips studiously still.

_It would take being in love with Rose Tyler to break me._

Her body curved slowly down so that it melded with mine, her breath in my ear.

_So…making love to Rose Tyler should, therefore, kill me… _

"_Allons-y._"

I made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a growl and thrust upward. Her skin blazed over mine; my hips searing. She reared up with a warbling cry and rolled her hips forward. My eyes open now, I could see her body rippling with the waves of us, her mouth stretched wide in ecstasy. Her hands scrambled into mine and squeezed with all her strength as we rushed against one another, panting breaths drowned by moans from both of us. She raised her herself up, timing it perfectly, and my vision near exploded as she came back down. I made a noise more low-pitched than I thought it was possible go and felt the pulse start deep in my pelvis.

It was like tidal wave; a force that drove me deep inside her and then some as it travelled up my length. Rose's voice broke completely as the pulse plunged me into her, legs straining to allow me all the way in. She collapsed down, eyes shut, hands flying to my chest.

"Rose?"

Panic flowered as I thought for one wild moment that I'd hurt her. I'd have thought it impossible a moment before, but I stopped, biting down the next thrust with all my might. She mumbled something that sounded almost like protest and I stared down at her, horrified.

"Rose?" I said more urgently. I received a sharp poke in the ribs.

"Pillock…you…fuck…" she was trying desperately to get her voice back. "Don't…st…"

She rolled her hips hard into mine and I cried out again.

"Keep going." She managed finally, summer eyes suddenly soft as they met mine. As if released from a clamp, my hips shot upward and all the adrenaline that had flooded my system at fear turned to desperate fuel. It was barely seconds before the next pulse erupted through us and we groaned, me clutching her body to mine as if subconsciously trying to meld us together.

"_Doctor…" _her hoarse voice misted my throat as I moved, clutched by a fervour unmatched in centuries. The pulses were faster now, driving me deeper and deeper until I couldn't stand it anymore. My mind was a mess of fear and want and _oh _overwhelming love for the woman burned into my mind. Still locked together, I flipped us over so that I was above, plunging forward with all the strength I had left. Her name jumbled itself past my lips as she started to scream mine; a sound unlike anything I had ever heard. The pulses came with every thrust now. The urge to release was overpowering, as was the urge to fall into her mind as we came closer and closer to an impossible peak.

Something held me back though.

The small part of my mind that was still me and not a sex-crazed maniac knew it wouldn't be able to survive if I went down that path. If I opened that connection and allowed her mind onto mine…

_I would never be able to let her go_.

Rose's nails scraped down my back as she screamed again. I could just about make out a few words – '_I can't…I'm going…I'm going to…' – _before she let out a universe-shattering shriek and came apart beneath me in a shuddering, surging wave. The soft walls that sheathed me contracted, and I yelled, and panted, and bellowed her name. The world spun into absurdity as my nether regions grow arctic. With a final, wild pulse, I fractured and let go. I came so hard I saw stars. Everything was a whirl of colour and shapes and I collapsed down, utterly spent.

* * *

It could have been minutes. It could have been ages of the earth. Entire universes could have been born and passed by because for some reason, nothing was registering. I murmured nonsense sounds and laughed, because that's all I wanted to do.

Fuck the universe. The universe could sod off while I had sex with the Bad Wolf.

_While I made love to Rose Tyler and forgot everything. _

She shifted softly. I raised my eyelids and opened my mouth against her stomach, looking up weakly.

"Hello."

"Uh," my brain was still a warm soup. She giggled, raising a hand to her tousled hair.

"Almost makes me wish we had 'I Nearly Lost You' sex more often." She said dreamily. I stared. That sentence really should have worried me, but right then all I could think of was how sexy she looked, the glow of her orgasm still bright on her skin.

"You know, the pulsing thing is a bit archaic." I found myself saying. "An artefact from when we Timelords still had such primitive practices."

I grinned ridiculously as she vibrated with a fresh wave of giggles

"The Gallifreyans outside the citadel – did I tell you about them? They still did it. It takes a certain…" I trailed off as she smiled. "…passion."

She slid a hand through my hair and stayed silent, watching me with eyes that shone.

_Her love for me._

"Do you want to…do anything, at all?" She asked casually after a few more minutes. I considered, though if I was honest, if it involved moving so that my cheek wasn't on her naked stomach anymore – so that the rest of my body wasn't nestled between her legs – it was a _terrible_ idea.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, just thought we might have gone out. Maybe. Day and two nights together, you know?"

"Why on earth would we want to go outside, Rose Tyler?"

I would never tire of seeing that grin.

* * *

She was trying to make it happy. And succeeding, for the most part. We had more chips – after I discovered I was famished (who'd have thought?) and we'd cleaned ourselves up.

Together. In the shower. We danced through the night as well after resting for bit with a film.

We did go out the following day, though. Went round the Natural History museum and discovered a couple of aliens trying to release a virus to the kids. They were coating all the souvenir stationary with it. So depressing to see the little shop used like that, but the feeling was outshone by the wonder of having Rose back at my side. My empty hand was suddenly whole again and we saved the world, or at least the lives of bright young humans, and laughed together. I felt like myself again – for the first time in two years. I felt like the Doctor.

_Her _Doctor.

Then we went home and shagged against her bedroom door. In the intensity of it, I had the urge again to meld my mind to hers and we spent a bit of time afterwards just clinging to each other.

I couldn't do it. _I_ _couldn't lose her._

I cried a bit. And then we made love again and the world fell away. We didn't sleep because we didn't want to waste a second of our time.

_And when did I start thinking in terms of 'us' and 'we'?_

That was easy.

_When you truly bound yourself to the woman you love._

* * *

"Rose?"

"Yeah?"

We were rootling round her flat for my scattered belongings in the bright, cold morning.

"We," I tried to hold myself together as I looked under her bed. "It'll be 'us' again, won't it? You and me in the TARDIS, Shiver and Shake?"

She stood in the doorway trying hard not to let the tears fall.

"Rose?"

"'course it will." She said softly, striding over to the bed and sitting on it, reaching out to me. "'course it will."

"How long?" I croaked, clutching her hand to my cheek as I leaned into it.

"Spoilers."

Again. She pulled me to her and we shared a long kiss; a kiss that said all the things words never could.

"Will say this, though," she said with the shadow of a grin. "It's not an adventure I'm ever gonna forget."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. And you know what?"

I trailed my lips down her neck to where her single heart pulsed the blood beneath her skin.

"What?"

"We were fantastic."

I laughed against her neck. Tears spilt down my cheeks, but it didn't matter. We rolled backwards onto the mattress and I crushed my mouth unrestrainedly to hers. Our tongues slipped and tangled a synchronous dance, mirroring our hands as our clothes disappeared. Made me wonder why we ever bothered with putting them back on again, and then – _oh._

"How _do _you do that?"

"Binary vascular system, Rose. Highly reliable."

She laughed and I pressed my forid to hers as my hands flowed over her beautiful body. I felt my fingertips glide over her skin, snagging wonderfully on her hardened nipples and leaving gooseflesh. She gasped as I put a hand to the heat between her legs and trailed my mouth back to hers. My fingers toyed with the bundled nerves before slipping inside her, making her moan into the morning. I captured her voice as she bucked into my hand.

"_Doctor._"

"Yes?"

I grinned wickedly with a twist of my fingers, but the hoarseness in my voice gave me away.

"_Doctor…need you..._"

"My love."

I plunged inside her burning body, trying to go slow – to saver this last moment – but it was impossible. I held my mind back so I wouldn't go balmy without her, but nothing else. I pulsed inside her and she screamed as I rammed against her core. Again and again, thrusting in and out, in and out, so that my mind reduced to a white wall of desperate _bottomless _need.

Because I needed her. Always her.

She screamed my name and I screamed hers and she held on until my member turned to ice. When it did, she loosed a shriek that seared itself on my brain and we fell over the edge together. Collapsing next to her, the aftershocks coursed through us for an age before sense returned. When it did, I felt more alive than I had ever done. It was _truly_ like regenerating. Imagine that…

"What must the neighbours think of you?" I said coyly. I scrunched my nose as she aimed the pillow at my face.

"S'pose they must be used to it by now." She said thoughtfully. We laughed. Suddenly I registered a bump beneath the chaotic duvet and reached down to retrieve a navy-woollen-something patterned with stars.

"So _that's _where that was."

* * *

"You gonna be okay?"

"I'm always okay."

"No, but really?"

I pulled her into a hug from which I never, ever wanted to move. I held her in an unbreakable embrace until my time-sense kicked in and told me we'd been stood still for three minutes forty-six seconds.

"I'll…survive." I said thickly, disengaging. "Somehow."

"Doctor…"

"You need to get back to him." I said firmly, my hands on her shoulders. "Because if I know him, he'll be all _worrying_ and _panicking_ and doing funny stuff to the TARDIS 'cos he thinks you've wondered off. Again. Seriously, rule one, Rose!"

"Shut up."

She kissed me.

"He'll be going mad because he needs you," I leant my head against hers. "My beautiful, impossible, _fantastic_ Rose Tyler."

"Take care of yourself."

"I will."

She moved reluctantly away and I felt the cold enclose me. I was losing her – _again_. Over and over again. I kept _letting it happen_. I was stupid, and old, and in the end, what had I done to deserve her? What had I done? But I just couldn't let her go, I _couldn't_, I –

"_Doing funny stuff to the TARDIS?_"

"Ah, well," I jerked back to the world to see her turned back to me, her tongue poking over her teeth as she watched me splutter. "It's usually, err, slightly less explosive than doing stuff to the toaster."

She laughed. The tinkling echoed around the square and a smile spread across my face too.

"See you around, then?"

Her fingers were at the bracelet.

"See you around. Rose Tyler."

"Love you."

And this time I didn't wait for her to disappear.

"Always. I love you."

There were tears running down my face as she smiled sadly, and pressed the button. A blink of light, like an electric shock, flashed in the air and she was gone. The tears kept coming.

But my hand, always the coldest, almost felt…warm…

* * *

_**A.N: 'Stolen and lost' was inspired by Bat Out Of Hell (Meatloaf), and the idea that her name got stuck on his tongue was inspired by Hardest Of Hearts (Florence and the Machine). I have to admit, I nicked 'pulsing' off of an idea by 'bluedawn01' (from rippling). Brilliant stories though - lot of shagging, but done beautifully with the characters. And 'seeing stars is a cliche' - I know, shoot me! But still, I hope i hit the mark here. I was going for character and emotions over pornography: as in having steamy stuff in an actual story.**_

_**Funnily enough, writing it originally, it felt almost exactly like writing an action sequence! Weird!**_

_**So, yeah, this is the lemon icing mark...2? 2ish. Review it, lovely people!**_

_**Oh, and a big thank you to everyone that has reviewed so far. You guys are awesome and bloody fantastic, you know! It's everything to know people read and like your stuff for a writer!**_


	5. Epilogue

_**Epilogue**_

"Rose Tyler, where have you been?"

"Just popped out."

They were on the lawn outside Scotland Yard.

"You could have given us a bit of warning, Rosie." The lilted American accent came from by the console as she neared the open door. Her view was obscured, though, as her Doctor came rushing out to pull her into a tight hug.

"You can't just go swanning off whenever you feel like it!" Micky sounded indignant, but the red-headed woman behind him just laughed.

"Oh, if ever two people were made for each other!"

"So, come on Rosie!" Jack bounded into view as the Doctor finally released her, settling for just her hand. "Where'd you get to?"

"Oh, you'd just love it if I'd found my way to some pleasure planet for a couple of days, wouldn't you?"

"I take it that's a 'no', then. Damn."

"Jack!"

"Well, he's closer to the truth then you might think." Rose clicked her tongue off the roof of her mouth and leaned up to the Timelord's ear. "And, I mean, I thought three years was quite enough notice."

It was worth the confusion of everyone else for the way the Doctor's eyes widened. He laughed suddenly, his whole face lit up, and pulled her into an earth-shattering snog. Jack whooped while Donna yelled something about a room and '_It's bad enough you two getting it on in the control room at four in the morning!' _She spotted Micky looking around for Martha as they broke away; saw Martha emerge and exclaim a greeting before linking arms with Micky.

"What did you go out for, anyway?"

"Well, I –" She stopped herself suddenly. "Bolocks!"

The Doctor looked at her with a sly grin.

"What?"

"I forgot the bloody milk!"

Jack laughed uproariously and Micky groaned loudly about their furthered deprivation. Six people _was_ a lot to have milk for. She met the Doctor's eyes and knew they'd have to tell the story at some point.

Something sparked in the deep, brown orbs.

_No, _she revised, _they'd have to _re-live _that story at some point. Definitely. Soon._

"Rose?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"I love you."

"Quite right, too."

* * *

_**A.N: An epilogue to a four-parter. Early Christmas present for you :)**_

_**I just want to say thank you to bluedawn01 and the brilliant stories because they're part of the reason this one exists, really. Your ones are inspiring cos they prove good stuff can be written in this context, and I love exploring the characters in this way and their relationship. It's amazing playing with first and third person stuff, as well (this extra is meant to reflect the fact that I didn't do Rose's perspective and, as a sort of Easter-egg thing, I thought I'd do it for this). I've gotten really interested in doing first person for the Doctor again since it allows a whole new raft of things to be done.**_

_**Thinking of filling in the story gap with this, actually, so keep an eye out.**_


	6. Back Page (sequel and other stories)

**Elfreida's Doctor Who Stories:**

**No.1 Between the Worlds **

**No.2 The Eye of the Beholder**

* * *

**Stand-alones:**

***Fire in the Dawn**


End file.
